Steven Robert Levitsky (born January 17, 1968) is an American political scientist and professor at Harvard University, where he serves as the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, Professor of Government, and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Raised in Ithaca, New York, the son of a Cornell psychology professor, he specializes in comparative politics, particularly democratization, authoritarianism, and political parties in Latin America. Levitsky earned his PhD from Stanford University in 1999 and joined Harvard in 2000. He is a senior fellow for democracy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation. Widely recognized as a public intellectual, he became particularly prominent during and after Donald Trump's presidency, co-authoring the New York Times bestselling books 'How Democracies Die' (2018) and 'Tyranny of the Minority' (2023) with Daniel Ziblatt. These works analyze threats to democratic norms globally, arguing that breakdowns often occur not through coups but via the erosion of norms by elected leaders, and introducing concepts like 'competitive authoritarianism' to describe hybrid regimes where incumbents tilt the playing field against opponents while maintaining formal democratic trappings. His research and commentary have positioned him as a key voice on contemporary democratic erosion, with extensive writing on threats to American democracy. In 2025, Levitsky gained renewed attention for helping organize faculty opposition to the Trump administration's demands on Harvard, co-authoring a letter signed by 800 colleagues that urged the university to defend academic freedom, preceding Harvard's public refusal to comply and the freezing of $2.2 billion in federal grants. He maintains an active public presence through social media, media engagements, regular contributions to major publications, and service as a columnist for Latin American newspapers.